Nature versus Nurture. Which is it? Is it both? Nature is our gene-pool – what we bring to the table. But what does nurture include? Is it only the environment after the baby is born or does it include the in-utero environment? How much of a role does either play in child development? And that of our children whose past – genes or otherwise – we don’t know? The ones who come to us with a whole other life and blueprint?
These questions and many others related to this topic make up what continues to be one of the leading debates in child development. Luckily for certain children the research – and mainstream reporting of such – is finally beginning to catch up with what we as mothers have perhaps know all along. When a child has a difficult start in life, whether inutero, at birth or after, it can leave its mark on the child’s development for months and years after.
When I gave birth to my eldest in the mid-1990’s, and our youngest a few years later, I barely gave a thought to the “nurture versus nature” debate and their development. I knew that my husband and I were of average intelligence, that we had pretty good genes and we were raising them in a loving home. I breastfed, took three months off, hired a good sitter and bought many of the greatest baby gadgets out there – car seat, exersaucer, swing.
Then we brought our youngest home from China and all my child development beliefs – and childrearing plans – were imploded. We watched this small being leap over certain developmental milestones (she stood up and walked across the room at 12 months – this was after months of no tummy or floor time whatsoever) and lag behind or totally ignore others (object permanence, imaginative play, motor planning). At four she was diagnosed with sensory processing disorder. At five attachment and trauma issues. At nine language processing, short term memory and expressive speech issues.
Suddenly, the things we didn’t know (her genes, her prenatal care, her birth experience) or had tried to forget (her abandonment, her sub-par orphanage care) were turning out to have played a much bigger role in her cognitive and emotional growth than I, a two-time-title-holding mother, could ever have imagined. What I read about brain development and neuroscience in infants, especially those faced with a difficult start (abandonment, adoption, medical trauma, inutero stress, time in NICU) was fascinating and significant food for thought for any parent, biological or adoptive. I even found myself wondering about the role my pregnancy stress had played on our second biological child’s hypersensitive infancy and toddlerhood.
According to the newer research, when life begins the brain is only a blueprint of what could be. The pathways are “penciled in” so to speak, but are by no means set in stone. That comes later as the infant begins to take in their surroundings (sensory input) and begins moving (output). The unseen environment of the womb and movements that may seem trivial to the watchful eye, such as kicking against the crib mattress, wiggling around on the floor or visually following mom as she walks about the kitchen cooking dinner, all aid in developing neural pathways.
In the womb and in the early months the pons, or lowest level, of the brain is being mapped. In the later months and into toddlerhood, it is the midbrain. It is this neurological integration that is so necessary for basic cognitive and physical skills such as filtering, focusing, accurate sensory perception, visual motor skills, midline awareness, visual tracking and alignment, upper/lower body integration, coordination, as well as appropriate emotional development.
When I sat and thought of all the stuff I had done with my older two children in the course of a single day (their “nurturing” so to speak), and compared that with the stark days that E had spent in an orphanage it suddenly made sense that her brain had not been given the chance it needed to build in a healthy manner – bottom to top. No wonder she had good executive functioning (higher brain) but was a mess when it came to pons level stuff (emotional regulation, feelings of safety and trust, etc) and midbrain (motor planning, sequencing, sensory management, language processing, etc).
So what is a parent of such a child (biological or otherwise) to do?
First, be on the lookout for niggling behaviors. You know the ones. That odd speech cycle; that delay in learning to skip, hop, jump on one leg; that bizarre leap forward over several milestones. To this day I wish I had insisted on an occupational evaluation by First Steps (a free service for many child) when we brought our daughter home. Yes, she looked so wonderful, was so happy and outgoing, but she also never cried, could not just “be”, and when she ran she moved in two planes in comedic-Jerry-Lewis fashion.
Second, don’t take no for an answer when your concerns are dismissed by well-meaning pediatricians. You know your child best. Read up on development (I liked the book Reflexes, Learning and Behavior by Sally Goddard for giving a window into what development should look like and what could be of concern) and don’t be afraid to educate your own pediatrician or seek a second opinion. The earlier a child is determined to be suffering from developmental delays the sooner the work can begin to get them back on the proper developmental sequence.
Third, do not despair. Significant research shows that the brain is actually more plastic than originally imagined. Potential healing is at times only a well-placed therapy away. If a child did not get the proper nurturing to build neural pathways and hook up synapses the first time around there is still hope. Much like a stroke victim who has suffered damage to the brain and can, through the proper movement therapy, create new brain pathways to take over for the old damaged ones, an infant or child who has suffered a difficult beginning can have a second chance in life; a “do over” so to speak. I know this first hand. Our youngest may still have a few lingering learning disabilities but otherwise her emotional and cognitive development are spot on.